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Helen Adam

PoemTalk Episode #93, Discussing Helen Adam's "Cheerless Junkie's Song", feat. Corina Copp, Laura Sims, and Richard Deming

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes at Jacket2.

"Cheerless Junkie's Song", from Ron Mann's documentary Poetry in Motion, 1981

Complete video (2:47): YouTube

Performing her work, and in conversation with Susan Howe and Charles Ruas, Susan Howe's Pacifica Radio Program, 1977-1978

Ballad of the Hawthorn Bower (4:20): MP3
Introduction (1:03): MP3
On her childhood in Scotland (8:39): MP3
On moving to San Francisco, "San Francisco's Burning," and writing ballads aloud (6:28): MP3
In and Out of the Horn-Beam Maze (5:38): MP3
On her favorite painters (2:17): MP3
On Allen Ginsberg, Jack Spicer, Open Space, and the atmosphere of San Francisco (4:11): MP3
At the Window (1:12): MP3
On gothic romances, magic, and the relationship between love and death (5:44): MP3
On Henry VIII's wives and ruthlessness (2:24): MP3
The Fair Young Wife (6:08): MP3
On madness, the Elizabethan era, and reincarnation (3:02): MP3
On Yeats, George MacDonald, and Robert Duncan (6:55): MP3
A Walk in the Wind (1:42): MP3

Complete recording (1:01:12): MP3

San Francisco's Burning (1963)

A lyric play written by Helen and Pat Adam, and performed by the Audio-Experimental Theatre on WBAI, July 17, 1977. Produced by Charles Ruas.

Part I

Section 1 (12:10): MP3
Section 2 (9:59): MP3
Section 3 (7:17): MP3
Section 4 (13:39): MP3
Section 5 (8:08): MP3
Section 6 (8:18): MP3
Section 7 (8:48): MP3

Part II

Section 1 (9:00): MP3
Section 2 (8:21): MP3
Section 3 (11:48): MP3
Section 4 (6:59): MP3
Section 5 (7:59): MP3
Section 6 (9:01): MP3
Section 7 (8:48): MP3
Section 8 (9:23): MP3

Part III

Section 1 (8:26): MP3
Section 2 (7:42): MP3
Section 3 (6:27): MP3
Section 4 (9:12): MP3

Cast

Helen Adam (reading Miss Mackie Rhodus and Anubis)
Pat Adam (reading Susan Pettigrew)
Marilyn Hacker (reading the Countess of Barth Malone)
Robert Hershon (reading Spangler Jack)
Barbara Wise (reading the Lovely Mrs. Valentine)
Also featuring Peter Fleur, William Packard, Martin L.H. Rhymert, Daniel Haberman, William Trapp, Arthur Williams, and Rob Noah Wynne

Adapted for Radio by Helen Adam, with musical assistance by Rob Noah Wynne. Technical direction by Manoli Weatherow and David Rapkin. Produced by Charles Ruas for WBAI.

The complete libretto to San Francisco's Burning was published by Hanging Loose Press in 1985.

Read Kristin Prevallet's Notes on San Francisco's Burning from A Helen Adam Reader (2007)

Helen Adam on PennSound Daily

© 2007 by Helen and Pat Adam. These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the authors. Used with permission of the authors. Distributed by PennSound.

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